Defence opportunities

Contracts from DRDO could then well be a gold-mine for prescient industrialists. Work in this field inevitably requires high quality, stringent specifications, and proper documentation. The discipline and capability generated by these requirements can lead to high pay-offs for the contractor in its other work Helping DRDO to successfully develop now items could lead to large production contracts for operational needs of the services. While many defence needs are met by in-house production, and some by imports, there is yet tremendous scope for the private sector. There is now a willingness to contract to private industry the production of defence requirements. The extent of such potential business can be gauged by the size of the defence budget. While a large part of the defence budget is composed of salaries and pensionsa massive Rs 30,000 crores this yearis indicative of the possibilities.The private sector is, one knows, not completely oblivious of the potential. Yet, the overall response seems tardy and half-hearted, despite some promotional attempts by both defence and industry associations. Part of this is attributable to the stringent requirements of quality and the difficulty of getting out of the anything goes, 8220;chalta hai8221; mentality. If Indian industry is to provide quality products, there can be no better training ground than to work with professional organisations that require 8211; and help to create 8211; the highest quality standards.In the United States, a large segment of industry owes its development and growth to contracts awarded by the Department of Defence and NASA. As a result, the US dominates the massive world-wide market for aerospace and military products. Some years ago, India began to change the long-standing even if implicit policy of not exporting military products. As a result, there is now a vast global market, in terms of potential. There are also great possibilities for spin-off products, based on technologies or materials developed for defence applications. These range from insulation products derived from heat-shields for missile systems to pace-makers for heart patients a spin-off from the work of a DRDO electronics laboratory.Indian industry is lucky to have the possibility of drawing on the pool organised and high-talented expertise that is available in DRDO, ISRO, CSIR and other scientific institutions. It should make full use of this opportunity by working closely with them right from the development phase of a project. This would be of mutual benefit, and would help India to emerge as a major force in the area of high-tech products and services.